James Whitlow Delano says he feels more at home in Asia than in the United States. This can be seen in the wispy photographs he brings back from Japan showing daily life in Tokyo, where he lives, and in Fukushima, where he traveled after the 2011 tsunami followed by the nuclear catstrophy.
His Tokyo journal, Mangaland, shows a Tokyo far different from the one we’re used to seeing, a distant, make-believe city of neon pop explosions and wild outfits. Here we see street scenes taken in a rainstorm, with crowds and along the Sumida River, whose foggy atmosphere Delano captures with his old Leica, which also thickens his subjects’ facial expressions. He takes his time, making mental notes while he shoots: “Ponytails, piercing glance and a cigarette.”
